This is the failed capitalist system that Chuka Umunna and eight other MPs have resigned from the Labour Party in order to defend.

Umunna stood in the Labour leadership election describing himself as "Blue Labour" - ie 'Red Tory' - and said he wants to be "on the side of those who are doing well". Tony Blair explicitly backed him.

As business secretary, Umunna took Labour into the 2015 elections saying "over the next parliament there will need to be cuts."

Angela Smith has always been tinged with blue - she publicly opposed Jeremy Corbyn's popular policy of nationalising utilities to end price rises and profiteering.

End austerity now, photo Paul Mattsson (Click to enlarge)

Every single one of them stood aside to let the Tory welfare cuts go ahead.

But the Independent Group tipped its hand by shacking up with Tory MPs like Anna Soubry - who thinks former Tory prime minister David Cameron "did a marvellous job" doing the "absolutely necessary" work of cutting public services.

But unfortunately, the nine MPs who resigned from the party aren't the only politicians in Labour who have, in Corbyn's words, "no problem with austerity".

This month, with not a whimper of protest, Labour-run councils passed plans to cut hundreds of millions of pounds more from council services. This is despite sitting on mountains of cash reserves which could be used, as part of a fightback strategy, to pass no-cuts budgets.

Leading Labour right-wingers like deputy leader Tom Watson and London mayor Sadiq Khan have lined up to bemoan the loss of their Blairite comrades. Watson has now called for setting up a 'social-democrat' organisation among Labour MPs to promote the same right-wing ideas as the Independent Group.

Others have already written their resignation letters and are only waiting for the best time to publish them and damage Corbyn.

If his anti-austerity programme is to be implemented, Labour's left leadership must have these saboteurs removed.

These MPs who have split should face immediate by-elections and be challenged by fighting, socialist candidates.